Worried about someone in an Arizona care home? Start here.
Arizona gives families something most states don't: the right to take a care home to court yourself, without waiting on the state. It also runs a public list of people it has caught hurting seniors — one almost nobody is told about. Below: what to do, and what your family has a right to.
Not sure if it's abuse?
However you're most comfortable — an Arizona lawyer will read it. Free, and you're not signing up for anything.
Someone will text you back within 15 minutes.
As seen on
The team that reads the records also takes the cases.
Defend Our Elders is published by Justice 4 Elders, a practice that handles nothing but neglected seniors — with an office in Phoenix and lawyers admitted in Arizona. Our watchdogs go through the state's inspection files; our lawyers take the cases those files point to.
Figures come from the CMS Provider Data Catalog and state licensing data, dated on each page. See exactly how we count →
We read every inspection the state published last year. The same homes keep coming up.
Our watchdogs go through the reports Arizona inspectors file on every care home, plus the federal ratings. Nothing here is our opinion — it's what the records say, and every number comes from a public record we can point you to. We refresh it every three months.
Nearly a third of Arizona's nursing homes are rated below average.
Medicare rates every nursing home from one to five stars. Here is how Arizona's 140 homes fall. Worth knowing: the stars are graded on a curve within each state, so the bottom fifth of Arizona homes get one star regardless of how they'd rank elsewhere. And from September, homes with five stars and a clean recent record get a shorter inspection than everyone else — which makes reading the underlying reports matter more, not less.
CMS Care Compare, all 140 certified Arizona nursing homes, checked 11 August 2026. How we counted →
Reporting a problem in Arizona, step by step
You don't need proof. You don't need to be family. You don't even have to give your name. Anyone can report, and a suspicion is enough — that's how the law is written on purpose. Here's the order we'd do it in.
Who to call — and what to say when they pick up
Arizona trips families up more than most states, because the agency everyone has heard of is usually the wrong one — Adult Protective Services says plainly that it does not investigate licensed facilities. For a nursing home or assisted living home you want the Department of Health Services, and the Long-Term Care Ombudsman (ask for extension 9). There's also one public record here that most families are never told exists. Tell us what you're seeing and we'll tell you exactly who to call, what to say, and what to look up first. We do this every day; most families only do it once.
We'll help you file the report — and make sure it lands
If your person is in a nursing home or an assisted living home, this goes to the Department of Health Services — the agency that licenses the home and can actually cite it — and to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman, who can act on your person's behalf. Adult Protective Services is the right call only if your person lives at home. We'll tell you which applies, sit with you while you make the call if you want, and follow up if nobody gets back to you. You can stay anonymous the whole way through.
Check the registry — and get the records before they're gone
Arizona publishes a searchable list of people the state has confirmed abused, neglected or exploited a vulnerable adult. It takes a minute to search and it's worth running before anyone new starts caring for your parent. Two things to know: it lists people, not homes, and a listing is an agency finding that can be appealed, not a criminal conviction. Then take photos, write down who said what, and get the care plan, chart and staffing sheets requested in writing. That last part is where families lose cases, so we send that request for you the same day you call.
Find out what your family is actually owed
Reporting can get your person safe and put a mark on the home's record. What it can't do is get your family anything back for what happened. That's a separate road, it has a deadline on it, and the deadline is shorter than most people expect. One call tells you whether you're on it and how long you've got.
Think you might be overreacting? Tell us anyway.
Tell us in a sentence or two. An Arizona lawyer will give you a straight answer — and if there's nothing here legally, we'll tell you that too, and point you at whoever can actually help. Free either way, and nobody will pressure you.
The lowest-rated nursing homes in Arizona
We took every home the government rates one star out of five, then ranked them by how many times an inspector recorded that a resident was actually harmed — not by how many findings there were. Nationally about 93 in every 100 findings are the "could have been harmed" kind, which is why a raw violation count tells you almost nothing. All of this is public record; we've just put it in one place. A finding means an inspector looked into it and agreed — it is not a court ruling.
From the federal Medicare ratings and inspection record for every certified nursing home in Arizona, checked August 2026. "Actually harmed" means a finding graded G or above on the federal scale. Ratings change every few months, so we check every few months. A low rating doesn't prove any particular resident was hurt, and homes are allowed to challenge findings. If you run one of these homes and think we've got something wrong, tell our team and we'll look again.
Why Arizona families can do something most states won't allow
Arizona's Adult Protective Services Act, in plain English
In most states you wait on the government to act, and if it doesn't, that's the end of it. Arizona wrote its law differently: a vulnerable adult or their family can take the caregiver or the home to court directly. You don't need the state to have substantiated anything first. Here's what that changes:
- You can sue without waiting on an investigation to finish, or to go your way
- A judge or jury can add damages meant to punish the home, on top of what your family lost
- The company that owns the home can be held responsible — Arizona's law reaches a "group of persons associated in fact," which is how ownership groups and management companies get pulled in
- The claim doesn't die with your person. What they went through before they died still counts, and it belongs to their estate
Two things Arizona's law does not do, which other sites get wrong. It no longer makes the home pay your legal fees in an abuse or neglect case — that provision was taken out of the statute in 2012, and only ordinary court costs are recoverable. Fees do survive where someone took your person's money, under a separate section that also allows up to double damages. And certain licensed medical providers are exempt from these claims unless they were the home's medical director or your person's main provider there. You still have to show the home fell short of the care it promised — and what proves that is a pattern in the inspection records, which in Arizona are public.
Arizona Revised Statutes § 46-455 (civil action, enterprise liability, survival after death) and § 46-456 (financial exploitation: fees and up to double damages). The attorney-fee provision was removed from § 46-455 by amendment in 2012.
How long does your family have?
from when you actually discovered it — not from when it happened
to file a notice if the home is run by a city, county or the state — and only <b>one year</b> to file the lawsuit itself
Read the second one twice. The 180-day notice is the deadline families hear about; the one-year deadline to actually sue a government-run home is the one that ends cases. It is not two years. Different rules apply again if your person has since died, and filing a petition asking permission to bring a claim does not stop the clock — only the lawsuit does. If a city, county or the state runs that home, the 180-day clock is the one that matters, and it runs from the harm, not from when you found out. Give us the home’s name and the date. Ask us to check →
What Arizona families ask us first
Will they take it out on my mom if I report them?
Do I have to wait for Adult Protective Services to finish first?
What is the Elder Abuse Registry, and should I be checking it?
What does it cost to have someone look at this?
Tell us what's going on. We'll tell you straight.
An Arizona lawyer reads every message that comes in — not a call centre, not a form robot. You'll find out whether there's a case here, how long you've got, and what to do next, whether or not any of that involves us.
Someone will text you back within 15 minutes.